What are some great books on Philosophy?

answers1: I consider Etienne Gilson essential reading for anyone
interested in philosophy. In fact, I consider him one of the best
philosophers of the 20th century (at least that I have read) in the
sense of his clear understanding of the issues surrounding philosphy.
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And 2 of his essentials … <br>
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Etienne Gilson ... Unity of Philosophical Experience <br>
Etienne Gilson ... God and Philosophy <br>
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http://www.amazon.com/Unity-Philosophical-Experience-Etienne-Gilson/dp/089870748X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235881989&sr=1-1
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The " Unity of Philosophical Experience" is particularly interesting
because Gilson gives one an overview of where philosophy went in the
last 1000 years. The great ideas that formed philosophy over this
period. The book is divided into 4 sections … <br>
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1) The Medieval Experiment <br>
2) The Cartesian Experiment <br>
3) The Modern Experiment <br>
4) The Nature and Unity of Philosophical Experience <br>
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Check the reviews of these books on Amazon.com for write-ups on them. <br>
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Also, Frederick Copleston's series, A History of Philosophy is also
excellent. One can buy any one of the 9 volumes, depending on what
period one is interested in. <br>
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http://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-1-Frederick-Copleston/dp/0385468431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235881733&sr=1-1
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" …. ….. Conceived originally as a serious presentation of the
development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick
Copleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyed far
beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim as the
best history of philosophy in English. <br>
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Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with
A. J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the
possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a
woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their
familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to
simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress the wrong by
writing a complete history of Western philosophy, one crackling with
incident and intellectual excitement -- and one that gives full place
to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded
manner and showing his links to those who went before and to those who
came after him………….."
answers2: Our our wise introspection. With a guileless heart let us
analyze things and try to know one by one. Every thing in the world
teaches us. Universe is an open book. An illiterate can be a
philosopher.
answers3: The Urantia Book offers a clear and concise integration of
science, philosophy, and religion. Those who read and study it believe
that The Urantia Book has the capacity to make a significant
contribution to the religious and philosophical thinking of people
worldwide. <br>
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The Urantia Book is not a "religion" per se. Its builds upon the
religious heritages of the past and present, encouraging a personal,
living religious faith.
answers4: The Bhagavad Gita. It is the most profound book ever. I am
not Indian and not Hindu. I am objective. This is a small marvel, a
pearl in literature, no, not a pearl, a precious gem, the most
precious. It is not religion. It is just philosophy at its best, at
the highest level ever.
answers5: Christian Apologetics, by Norman Geisler. <br>
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Against Liberalism, by John Kekes
answers6: Sophie's World <br>
Just as an intro into the whole concept and situation of Philosophy in
our world today. It is very good in the way that it presents the whole
thing in a simple and straight manner :P hope i helped
answers7: Read a book, period. But start with: "The Story of
Philosophy" by Will Durrant.
answers8: I would start with "History of Philosophy" by Frederick
Copleston, S.J., and "History of Political Philosophy", edited by Leo
Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. They're harder than you most likely want
but they have serious depth to them. Additionally, I would read books
by Ayn Rand -- just remember she's not the end of philosophy as her
tone sometimes manages to suggest. "History of Western Philosophy" by
Bertrand Russell is also a good first read; however, it is dated and
lacks depth at times. Read "Closing of the American Mind" by Allan
Bloom to see a philosophical mind at work examining America in the
1980s. Also try reviewing the MIT free open courses at: <a
href="http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index"
rel="nofollow"class=Clr-b>http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/co...</a>
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After that try the main texts below: <br>
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Plato -- The Republic, The Laws <br>
Aristotle -- Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics <br>
Thucydides -- The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians <br>
St.Augustine -- The City of God <br>
Dante -- The Divine Comedy <br>
Maimonides -- the guide of the Perplexed <br>
St. Aquinas -- Summa Theologica <br>
Machiavelli -- The Prince, The Discourses on the First ten books of
Titus Livius <br>
Bacon -- New Atlantis, Advancement of Learning <br>
Descartes -- Discourse on Method, Meditations <br>
Hobbes -- Leviathan <br>
Locke -- Two Treatises of government, An essay concerning Human
Understanding <br>
Milton -- Paradise Lost <br>
Shakespeare -- Hamlet, King Lear, <br>
Spinoza -- Theologico-Political Treatise <br>
Hume -- Treatise of Human Understanding, Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding <br>
Rousseau -- Social Contract, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts <br>
Smith -- The Wealth of Nations <br>
Burke -- Reflections on the Revolution in France <br>
Kant -- Critique of pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason <br>
Hegel -- Phenomenolgy of the Mind <br>
Marx -- Capital <br>
Nietzsche -- Beyond Good and evil, Thus spoke Zarathustra <br>
Husserl -- Logical Investigations <br>
Heidegger -- Being and Time <br>
Wittgenstein -- Philosophical Investigations <br>
Popper -- The Logic of Scientific Discovery, The open Society and its Enemies
answers9: The biggest selling anthology of philosophy in history is
The Great Books of the Western World, available only in a library.
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Read just volumes II and III. <br>
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They cover the 102 topics most covered in philosophy. Doing it by
topic allows the authors to include the basic ideas of each
philosopher side by side. That way you don't have to read each
philosopher one by one. <br>
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It makes reading philosophy exciting because when you find something
interesting and want to read more, the books tell you where in the
rest of the series of books to find it.
answers10: Here's a few 'Heavyweights' I enjoy from various genres:
The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer The Divine Comedy by Dante Paradise
Lost by Milton Don Quixote by Cervantes Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear
by Shakespeare The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky Faust by Goethe
Ulysses by Joyce Moby Dick by Melville The Republic by Plato The
Prince by Machiavelli Leviathan by Hobbes The Art of Warfare by Sun
Tzu The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon Thus Spoke
Zarathustra by Nietzsche The Analects by Confucious The Bhagavad Gita
The Golden Bough by Fraser The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Campbell
The White Goddess by Robert Graves